Life in France seen through the round window of a straw-built grand design.

Willkommen Bienvenue Welcome

Welcome, gentle readers.

This is an everyday tale of regular folk, who moved from Sheffield to the deepest Corrèze in France Profonde and thence to the rather more cosmopolitan Lot in search of something… different. We certainly found it.

The Lot is an area of outstanding natural beauty. Reputedly, a famous TV globetrotter was asked where, of all the places in the world he had visited, he might return to. He answered, ‘The Lot’.

Fans of Channel 4’s Grand Designs will know that we built a somewhat quirky straw bale house-with-a-view here in the Lot, not far from the celebrated Dordogne river. You can read all about it in my book, Bloody Murder On The Dog's Meadow, or watch the re-runs of the programme on More 4, or view it on You Tube.

After a break in the proceedings to write a book or two, this blog now takes the form of an everyday journal. Sometimes things happen, sometimes they don't (but the art school dance goes on forever). I hope it will give you an entertaining insight into what it's like to live in a foreign country; what it's like in the slow lane as an ex-pat Brit in deepest France.

I shall undertake to update this once or twice a week, unless absent on leave. Comments always welcomed, by the way, but I do tend to forget what buttons to click in order to answer them.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

15–22nd December: Spending Frenzy

Thank heavens for the comparative sanity of rural France.
Give or take the odd over-dressed maison aux
illuminations de Blackpool, the French generally seem to have a more
clear-headed attitude when it comes to Christmas. Except when it comes to food,
of course.

It's a relief to be home. I was in grave danger of being
swept away in the tsunami of spending. Today's Grauniad home page tell us that Visa expects Britons (who will
never, never be slaves to anything other than Big Retail) to add an extra £1.3
billion to their credit card accounts in a frenzy of last-minute shopping for
Christmas. The horror, the horror!
The waste, the waste. If all that money spent on fragrant cosmetics, Bristol
Cream Sherry, socks and other potentially superfluous gifts could be channelled
into something more worthwhile, just think...

Not that I am blameless. Au contraire, mes braves. Last year's worthy endangered wildlife
adoptions were met with resounding silence from the UK branch of the family, so
this year I felt I had to buy more conventional gifts lest the names of the
French Connection were turned to mud. So The Kid and I took some time off from
family duties to visit Southampton city centre one afternoon last week.

We started off in Ikea and did the usual trick of
amassing a substantial bill with insubstantial trifles that we probably didn't
need anyway. Then Tilley talked me into lunch in the West Quay shopping
complex, where we were unable to avert our eyes from the spectacle of
overweight Britons augmenting their paunches with chips and other
starch-enriched food. We split up afterwards, so I could buy stocking fillers
from Poundland, spices and pickles from the Asian Food Emporium and sensible
presents from Waterstone and the HMV shop, while my daughter conducted her own
top-secret business. Everywhere was teeming and overheated and I was dressed
for more continental winter weather. By the time we missed our agreed
rendezvous – because I was inside rather than outside the HMV shop – we were
both about ready to expire or to kill. Fortunately, we forwent an East Enders-style slanging match in
favour of some deep breathing laced with a healthy dash of philosophy.

It wasn't that we were over there to shop, but given that
Britain is so geared up for it and that Brive offers such a limited choice, it
made sense to join in the communal madness. No, we were there to relieve my
sisters by helping my father merge into his new flat. And once it was a little
more straight, then there was time off at the weekend to attend my nephew's
wedding.

I'm relieved to report that it wasn't the kind of
fairy-princess affair that cripples domestic economies. It was simple, elegant
and thoroughly enjoyable. My nephew's sombre suit was enlivened by the ornate
waistcoat from Liberty's that my father wore on his wedding day. His bride wore
a pair of Uggs underneath her wedding dress, which she kept on right to the
very end of the evening party to derive maximum benefit from an outfit that
will undoubtedly be worn only once. My great nephews were all kitted out in
clothes that were bought on the cheap from eBay. The table decorations for the
afternoon 'wedding breakfast' were all hand-made by the radiant – and, it would
seem, thoroughly practical – bride, and the speeches were concise, heartfelt
and suitably lacking in pretension. So the whole affair will be nominated for
the 2014 Queen's Award for Dignity and Modesty in the Face of Prevalent Ostentation.

While breaking my fast, I chatted to the young woman to
my knife-side. She was born in Chile, but moved with her parents to Sweden
about 30 years ago, where she lives on the edge of the conifer woods not too
far from Stockholm. She met her boyfriend, the bride's brother, bizarrely by
playing Xbox games on the computer (if I've reported the term correctly). They
teamed up on a search-and-destroy mission and developed such a rapport on their
virtual walky-talkies that they have now teamed up in the parallel real world.
I can only imagine that it must be like a Territorial Army exercise without
having to leave the comfort of your own computer.

I have always had a touching faith that the sensible Scandinavian
countries might yet lead us through a last-minute escape tunnel into a kind of
promised car-less land of moderate weather and sylvan fields where humans,
animals and a better class of insects live together in blissful harmony. It
seems that I am misguided. She told me a familiar tale of burgeoning political
extremism, unseasonably warm winters and, just to put the old tin lid on it, a
similar kind of US-aping commercial apocalypse in the lead-up to Christmas.

After such
knowledge, what forgiveness...? I kissed my demented mother goodbye and
hoped that she continued to recover from her latest bout of care-home
pneumonia. I hugged my father, the World's Laziest Man, and expressed the wish
that he might learn to be a little more self-reliant in his new (tidier and
less cluttered) residence. I packed the Berlingo with a trunk full of my
mother's unpublished manuscripts, a box full of unwanted paperbacks (mainly
given to my mother by her oldest child), bags of reciprocal presents and all
those spices and stocking fillers from Southampton city centre, and set off for
home. A beautifully packed boot is not quite so fine if you forget your
daughter's winter overcoat and your own phone and camera chargers.

Never mind. We got back in one piece. It's a long, long
way from Le Havre to La Poujade Basse, but French roads are mercifully emptier
than all those British roads choked with last-minute shoppers. We ran into a bouchon through Limoges, but by then the
grey sky of northern France had turned miraculously into the radiant blue of a
proper cold continental winter's day. We were still back early enough to enjoy
my wife's aubergine pie and an evening of decking the halls with decorations in
preparation for our own brand of traditional
family Christmas. The financial wound has been cauterised and the bleeding staunched
before permanent damage was incurred.

I shall raise a glass at lunchtime on the 25th
to the ghost of Cockers past. I learnt on my return that Joe has died at the
age of 70. Not only was he a son of Sheffield, but he was blessed with a
seriously good set of pipes. I remember clearly the site of that dishevelled
man in a tie-die T-shirt on Top of The
Pops, arms flailing epileptically as he delivered his almost unrecognisable
version of 'With A Little Help From My Friends'. I rushed out to buy the single
– on the Regal Zonophone label if I'm not mistaken. Even though his taste
became a little questionable over the years, I wish I still had that record in
my collection.

So Happy Christmas one and all – including the late
lamented Joseph Cocker, should he be up there in some kind of Afterlife, backed
by the Grease Band and writhing in apparent agony.

Camp Street

About Me

Born in London, raised in Belfast, further-educated at Exeter and Sussex universities, I'm a professional dilettante, a family man and tireless dog-walker. You can listen to Lost & Found, my monthly radio show on www.expatsradio.com and check out my author page on Amazon.